


Just one

by WahlBuilder



Category: Mars: War Logs, The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Bonding, Character Study, Gen, Technomantic Culture, Worldbuilding, twenty headcanons in a trench coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 00:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17612240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: Roy and Sean discuss aspects of Technomancy and their differences in the approach to it.





	Just one

‘Sit down.’

Sean eyes him as though a puzzle, and for his sake, Roy hopes it’s not mockery he’s preparing.

‘Is this necessary?’

‘Is your uniform necessary?’

‘The bodyglove and armour protect me.’

‘Wasn’t talking about them.’

Sean eyes him again, and Roy refuses to fidget under this gaze. ‘You may sit on the cot if you’d rather,’ he offers.

Sean, of course, lowers himself on the floor, mirroring Roy’s own pose with legs folded. In part, Roy said that exactly to make him.

Sean is all stiff, doesn’t slouch. His boots creak, high and dark and good; out there, many would kill for such boots. Roy wonders whether Sean realises that, no matter the actual garments, he hasn’t stopped wearing the grey. Knowing Sean, Roy’d bet he knows that.

It is so... military, and makes Roy want to stride in the middle of Ophir and suck all energy out of it, from all the levels, from the Source outward to the edging Slums... And then let it all out at once. Level it out.

The Auroran coats... The full vestments, those that are worn for most formal occasions, are constricting, more so, he supposes, than those short ones Sean is used to. A bodyglove and corsetry. But they are not a _uniform_.

They are not soldiers.

Warrior-cenobites, they are.

 _The Aurorans_ are, he reminds himself.

He offers Sean his right hand, and Sean places his palm on his after just a moment of hesitation. There is almost no spark: they are around each other so frequently and do this so often that their potentials don’t have the time to misalign.

Sean wants to learn. He has a hungry mind, and Roy likes that about him. The need to not only know, but to make sense of the world around him. Even though sometimes it is frustrating.

‘So how do you see the currents?’ Sean’s fingers are lightly curled. His left hand is bare and warm. He has many scars on his hands, very thin.

‘You will it.’

‘Will it?’ Sean leans back, breaking the physical contact, that brow arching. ‘Roy, I need more than “You will it”. Our abilities are chemistry, physics. There is... There is no will to it, not at its core.’

There it is again. ‘If you don’t want to listen, I’m wasting my time.’ More than that he doesn’t want to have a fight with Sean. Their discussions don’t always end well.

‘No, wait.’ Sean pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m sorry. Maybe I’m too old to learn.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Don’t feed me that.’

‘It’s not easy.’

‘Few things are easy.’

‘Are you preaching to me?’

‘I’m not a preacher, I am— _was_ a monk.’

They stare at each other. This is futile.

He tries to find a way to explain—himself, his approach, all this mess. All this that he denied and buried for so long—and reached for when he needed to protect what he loved. ‘Have you ever tried to compose a song? Or listened to one?’

‘Of course, brother, only recently…’ Sean arches his brow again, infuriating.

Roy doesn’t allow annoyance to claim him. ‘Have you read a novel? Looked at a drawing? Danced? Chemistry and physics, and your reactions to them are chemistry and physics, too. You are atoms, sparks of electricity.’

‘I don’t get where—’

‘You say all that,’ he talks over Sean, ‘yet you don’t kill. You value life, you talk about it so…’ He snorts. ‘My former mentors would have wept.’

Sean looks startled. Roy wonders whether it’s not just hunger for knowledge—but for kinship, too, the kinship found in that knowledge.

‘I don’t say that your view is wrong,’ he tells Sean, ‘or less than mine. But mine is not wrong or less either.’

After a moment, Sean inclines his head and reaches out his left hand again. Roy holds it in his right.

‘Monks?’ the bastard sounds amused, and there it is, that tiny smile in the corner of his mouth. ‘Shouldn’t you be… Celibate and all that?’

He rolls his eyes again. He has to do it often these days. ‘Spirits, no, where’d you get that? It’s not one of those apocalyptic cults or the solar cults. It’s so easy to tell the world: “You are unclean, I reject you,” and turn your back on it. I stopped using Technomancy but I’ve never…’ He cuts himself off. This is not about personal matters. Sean only wants to know how to ‘see’ the currents.

‘Never stopped being a Technomancer?’ Sean finishes quietly.

Roy squeezes his fingers. ‘Fuck you. I never stopped being that. It is more than just using electricity. Locusts and jellies can generate electricity, too, but you don’t admit them into your Order, do you? I took my vows.’

‘What are they?’

‘Not your business.’

Sean’s thumb rubs over his knuckles, busted thoroughly in fights. ‘Why did you leave?’

Even Tenacity doesn’t ask him that. Tenacity never asks, even though sometimes Roy needs him to.

‘I didn’t belong. Are we done with my Troubled Past? We’ve shit to do. Have you ever talked to the stations in the domes?’

Sean blinks. Roy hopes he’s thoroughly unbalanced by the change of the topic. ‘I know how to use them, Roy.’

‘No, I mean _talked_.’

Sean crinkles his nose. He does it so handsomely. Dramatically. A show-off worse than Tenacity. ‘They are not alive to talk to them, Roy.’

Oh great. The patronising tone, he does that well, too. Roy moves his hand up and into the cuff of Sean’s sleeve, pressing the pad of his thumb to the pulse point. ‘And _you_ are nothing but a speck made of atoms. _Everything_ is alive, and you know that perfectly well. The universe is aware, and longs to be witnessed, and pours its love into every little thing. You are no more important than a locust—and no _less_ important.’

Sean looks at him with a strange smile that softens his features, then huffs. ‘Whoever mistakes you for a mere bruiser is blind and deaf.’

He doesn’t know how to take this or what exactly Sean means, so he brushes it off. ‘Tell you what, we’ll go ostrich- or manta-watching, and try a few exercises. Seeing currents is very useful.’

Sean smiles again. ‘All right, Roy. Thank you.’ He squeezes Roy’s fingers, and Roy hastily takes them away, then gets up.

And lingers, thinking.

‘I’ll tell you the primary, most important vow. “Save one life”.’ He offers Sean his hand again, and Sean clasps his wrist and hauls himself up.

‘That’s it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just one?’

He smiles. ‘It’s enough.’


End file.
